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Comment by davidf560 | Hacker News Reader

Certainly business would be way down, but they'd at least get to try to save their own business. Right now they don't stand a chance as it's entirely out of their control.

Given the decline in business, a small furniture store probably wouldn't have a lot of issues with customers maintaining distance. Most furniture stores are not crowded even in normal times. This would probably be true for many other types of retail stores as well. It's not zero risk of course, but nothing in life ever is.

Perhaps some shoppers would make a point of shopping to help out, or just aren't that concerned and want to get out, or want to furnish their new house/apartment that they've been in for the past 6 weeks completely empty.

More people are starting to wonder if there's a viable option between "full lockdown, groceries only" and "free-for-all". Since some states are relaxing restrictions I guess we'll start to find out.

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> but they'd at least get to try to save their own business. Right now they don't stand a chance as it's entirely out of their control.

True. They are powerless over their fate at the moment and they can't even begin to move online.

They probably can re-open. The challenge is just going to be on drawing the line. Furniture is ok, but what about Build A Bear or a mattress store?

I have seen various reports that discretionary spending online has sunk massively, so not sure that would help. The perspective of a big economic crisis (and job loss) has collapsed the demand. And if your business is a bar...

They still have a chance to try to do some business: Start an online store. But yes, overall it's going to be very hard for them, as it is for many others, because furniture shopping was always going to plummet during a global pandemic no matter what. There's no plausible scenario of social distancing or no social distancing under which they come out OK. They may have shuttered anyway even if they hadn't been forced to simply because no customers were coming through and it didn't make sense to remain open. Here in NYC a lot of restaurants made the decision to shutter entirely in advance of the official orders, because business had already plummeted substantially to the point that they were losing money no matter what.

> Start an online store.

Easy for many of us. Not always so easy for a small business owner. Even something turn-key like Shopify requires a lot of setup. Plus, you'd likely need to go to the shop to take product photos etc. which would not be permitted travel in some areas.

Even then, with a website up, how do they get any traffic to it? A sign in the window normally might work, but no one is driving by anyway since they assume everything is closed. Buying some ads may work, but now you're incurring even more costs when you're being bled dry already. Word-of-mouth is probably the best you can get. Plus, most people probably aren't going to purchase the kind of furniture you'd get from a boutique shop online - they want to see it, touch it, sit on it.

I've seen small clothing shops out there live streaming their products on Facebook and people buying via comments. I applaud their effort but also wonder how that can ever be enough. These stores exist today pretty much only because people want to buy this stuff in person, otherwise they'd just buy on Amazon.

The wheels need to start turning again sometime. Tax revenue is taking a huge hit which is also going to cripple government's ability to provide help now and in the future. I'm fearful that the economic impacts are going to be much worse and much longer lasting than we can even begin to imagine. I really hope I'm wrong.

Even if they did reopen, do you seriously think there would be a significant number of consumers making large purchases given that we're seeing mass unemployment and people focusing on things they actually need to live?

Reopening isn't going to save those furniture stores when people fundamentally don't have the money to shop like that.

I'm not sure how different areas lockdown restrictions work differently, but in my San Francisco neighborhood all the small furniture and mattress places just have phone numbers posted on their doors. I've seen the mattress man make some sales even.

The governor of Illinois was recently asked a specific question during a press conference regarding whether non-essential businesses were allowed to operate for web or phone orders with pickup options. He stated clearly that this is not permitted under the current stay-at-home order (but it will be permitted under the new order starting May 1).

There's enough confusion around these orders though that I believe some non-essential businesses were operating for curbside pickup anyway.

There's also a drive-in movie theater trying to open up around here but the government is saying no. Decisions like that just anger people because they don't seem to be based on common sense. The risk there is so low that the government would gain a bit of goodwill if they just said "fine, open it up and make sure to follow all guidelines".

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